PURCELL Come all ye Songsters

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Henry Purcell, Giovanni Battista Draghi, Christopher Simpson, Francesco Corbetta

Genre:

Vocal

Label: Wigmore Hall Live

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 77

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: WHLIVE0083

WHLIVE0083. PURCELL Come all ye Songsters

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(The) Fairy Queen, Movement: ~ Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
(The) Fairy Queen, Movement: Dance of the Fairies Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
(The) Fairy Queen, Movement: Ye gentle spirits of the air Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Harpsichord Suite No 5 Henry Purcell, Composer
Henry Purcell, Composer
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Timon of Athens, Movement: The cares of lovers Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Fly swift, ye hours Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Not all my torments can your pity move Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
(The) Italian Ground Giovanni Battista Draghi, Composer
Giovanni Battista Draghi, Composer
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Don Quixote: The Musical, Movement: From rosy bowers Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Don Quixote: The Musical, Movement: Let the dreadful engines Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
(The) Fairy Queen, Movement: If love's a sweet passion Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Passacaglia Francesco Corbetta, Composer
Francesco Corbetta, Composer
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Aureng-Zebe Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Aureng-Zebe, Movement: I see she flies me Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Pious Celinda goes to prayers Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Division on a Ground Christopher Simpson, Composer
Christopher Simpson, Composer
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
St Cecilia's Day Ode, 'Hail, bright Cecilia', Movement: 'Tis Nature's voice Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Abdelazer, Movement: Lucinda is bewitching fair (song) Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
(The) Fairy Queen, Movement: Hark! the echoing air Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
(The) Indian Queen, Movement: I attempt from love's sickness Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
King Arthur, Movement: Song Tune: Fairest Isle Henry Purcell, Composer
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Elizabeth Kenny, Lute
Henry Purcell, Composer
Jonathan Manson, Bass viol
Laurence Cummings, Harpsichord
Cast your eye down the list of artists on Wigmore Live’s latest release and it tells you pretty much all you need to know about the contents. A Baroque supergroup, comprising Elizabeth Kenny, Jonathan Manson and Laurence Cummings, join soprano Carolyn Sampson for a Purcell programme and the results are as glorious as you’d imagine.

What could be just another lovely solo recital is subtly but determinedly refocused here as an ensemble affair. Each of the musicians gets a chance to step into the spotlight, and the result is both a more interesting and a much more satisfying listen than a straight sequence of arias with the obligatory mid-programme instrumental breath-catcher.

Whether it’s Manson’s easy virtuosity in Christopher Simpson’s Divisions on a Ground, Cummings’s delicate ornamentation in Purcell’s Harpsichord Suite No 5 in C or the instinctive musicality of Kenny’s sequence of lute pieces, it all adds up to a sense of dialogue. It’s a dialogue that spills over into the songs themselves, with the instrumentalists very present and forward in the recorded balance for the opening sequence of movements from The Fairy Queen. It’s the instruments that help ignite the explosive Lombardic rhythms and help to articulate the shifting musical moods of ‘Ye gentle spirits’.

But it’s Sampson whose flexible voice (expanding from near-white simplicity in ‘Fairest isle’ to heightened dramatic scope for ‘Not all my torments’ or ‘I see she flies me’) keeps us listening through an inevitably fragmented sequence of short works. Two larger-scale songs – ‘From rosy bow’rs’ and ‘Let the dreadful engines of eternal will’ – anchor the programme and give her greatest vocal scope, shaping Purcell’s arioso-style writing with care and a sense of structural balance and pacing.

Any recording of Purcell songs enters a crowded market but Sampson makes a strong case for her contribution, with just a little help from some starry musical friends.

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